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David Friedman discusses his recent book Future Imperfect
at the Cato Institute, November 6, 2008.

David Director Friedman (born February 12,
1945) is an American writer who became a leading
figure in the anarcho-capitalist community with
the publication of his book The Machinery of Freedom
(1973, revised 1989). He has also authored the books Price
Theory: An Intermediate Text (1986), Law's Order
(2000), Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life
(1996), and Future Imperfect (2008). [1]

Anarcho-capitalism

In his 1973 book The Machinery of Freedom,
Friedman developed a form of anarcho-capitalism where all goods
and services including law itself can be produced by the free market. This
differs from the version proposed by Murray Rothbard, where a legal code
would first be consented to by the parties involved in setting up
the anarcho-capitalist society. Friedman advocates an
incrementalist approach to achieve anarcho-capitalism by gradual privatization of
areas that government is involved in, ultimately privatizing law
and order itself. In the book, he states his opposition to violent
anarcho-capitalist revolution.[3]

Non-academic interests

Friedman is a longtime member of the Society for Creative
Anachronism, where he is known as Duke Cariadoc of the
Bow. He is known throughout the worldwide society for his
articles on the philosophy of recreationism and practical
historical recreations, especially those relating to the medieval
Middle East[6]. His
work is compiled in the popular Cariadoc's Miscellany[7]. He is
sometimes credited with founding the largest and longest-running
SCA event, the Pennsic
War; as king of the Middle Kingdom he challenged the East
Kingdom, and later as king of the East accepted the challenge…and
lost.[8]